Beyond Cross-Language Transfer: Reconceptualizing the Effect of Early Bilingualism on Morphological and Syntactic Processing

Li-Jen Kuo

The proposed project aims to examine increasingly critical, yet under-researched, theoretical underpinnings regarding the way early experience in two languages shapes children’s metalinguistic development. The project will look beyond the prevalent cross-language transfer view and investigate how early bilingualism shapes the language acquisition mechanism with an alternative conceptual framework – the cognitive flexibility theory. It follows from this theoretical view that early bilingual experience leads to elevated cognitive flexibility, and thus bilinguals would show advantages in several aspects of metalinguistic development regardless of the typological affinity of the two languages they are developing. The project will include English-speaking monolinguals, Spanish-English bilinguals and Chinese-English bilinguals. Concurrently examining bilinguals acquiring two languages with different degrees of typological affinity will allow us to distinguish universal bilingual effects from bilingual effects associated with transfer from a specific language. Participants will complete researcher-developed and standardized measures of morphological and syntactic competence. Data will be analyzed in mixed MANOVA and hierarchical regressions. Findings from the study will not only substantially inform theories of bilingual cognition, but also provide educational practitioners with research-based guidelines to design curriculum and instruction that more effectively capitalize on the metalinguistic strengths of bilingual children acquiring languages with different degrees of typological affinity.

About Li-Jen Kuo

Li-Jen Kuo’s research interest in biliteracy development stems from her personal experiences with young second language learners and her professional commitment to creating learning environments conducive to their literacy development. After completing a B.A. in Foreign Languages and Literatures at National Taiwan University, she came to the US for graduate study. She first earned an M.A. in Language, Learning and Policy from Stanford University, and then went to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), where she worked as a research assistant at the Center for the Study of Reading and completed a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology with Richard C. Anderson. Because Li-Jen finds it essential to have a solid background in theoretical and applied linguistics to study language and literacy development in a cross-language context, she also earned an M.A. in Linguistics from UIUC. In addition, she was a two time fellow of the Linguistics Society of America and received advanced training in linguistics at MIT, Harvard, and Stanford. Li-Jen has been involved in research projects on various aspects of literacy acquisition, ranging from the emergence of phonological awareness and morphological awareness to the development of reading comprehension and critical thinking. Currently, Li-Jen is an Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology at Northern Illinois University, where she continues her research on language, cognition and bilingualism. On the lighter side, she enjoys experimental cooking, classical Chinese music, and Chinese martial arts novels.